We obtain a tight bound of $O(L^2\log k)$ for the mixing time of the exclusion process in $\mathbf{Z}^d/L\mathbf{Z}^d$ with $k\leq{1/2}L^d$ particles. Previously the best bound, based on the log Sobolev constant determined by Yau, was not tight for small $k$. When dependence on the dimension $d$ is considered, our bounds are an improvement for all $k$. We also get bounds for the relaxation time that are lower order in $d$ than previous estimates: our bound of $O(L^2\log d)$ improves on the earlier bound $O(L^2d)$ obtained by Quastel. Our proof is based on an auxiliary Markov chain we call the chameleon process, which may be of independent interest.
We study mixing times of the symmetric and asymmetric simple exclusion process on the segment where particles are allowed to enter and exit at the endpoints. We consider different regimes depending on the entering and exiting rates as well as on the rates in the bulk, and show that the process exhibits pre-cutoff and in some cases cutoff. Our main contribution is to study mixing times for the asymmetric simple exclusion process with open boundaries. We show that the order of the mixing time can be linear or exponential in the size of the segment depending on the choice of the boundary paramete…
In this paper, we investigate the mixing time of the adjacent transposition shuffle for a deck of $N$ cards. We prove that around time $N^2\log N/(2π^2)$, the total variation distance to equilibrium of the deck distribution drops abruptly from $1$ to $0$, and that the separation distance has a similar behavior but with a transition occurring at time $(N^2\log N)/π^2$. This solves a conjecture formulated by David Wilson. We present also similar results for the exclusion process on a segment of length $N$ with $k$ particles.
In this paper, we investigate the mixing time of the simple exclusion process on the circle with $N$ sites, with a number of particle $k(N)$ tending to infinity, both from the worst initial condition and from a typical initial condition. We show that the worst-case mixing time is asymptotically equivalent to $(8π^2)^{-1}N^2\log k$, while the cutoff window, is identified to be $N^2$. Starting from a typical condition, we show that there is no cutoff and that the mixing time is of order $N^2$.
Consider the following method of card shuffling. Start with a deck of $N$ cards numbered 1 through N. Fix a parameter $p$ between 0 and 1. In this model a ``shuffle'' consists of uniformly selecting a pair of adjacent cards and then flipping a coin that is heads with probability p. If the coin comes up heads then we arrange the two cards so that the lower numbered card comes before the higher numbered card. If the coin comes up tails then we arrange the cards with the higher numbered card first. In this paper we prove that for all p not equal to 1/2, the mixing time of this card shuffling is O…
We consider the simple exclusion process with $k$ particles on a segment of length $N$ performing random walks with transition $p>1/2$ to the right and $q=1-p$ to the left. We focus on the case where the asymmetry in the jump rates $b=p-q>0$ vanishes in the limit when $N$ and $k$ tend to infinity, and obtain sharp asymptotics for the mixing times of this sequence of Markov chains in the two cases where the asymmetry is either much larger or much smaller than $(\log k)/N$. We show that in the former case ($b \gg (\log k)/N$), the mixing time corresponds to the time needed to reach macroscopic e…
We analyze the mixing behavior of the biased exclusion process on a path of length $n$ as the bias $β_n$ tends to $0$ as $n \to \infty$. We show that the sequence of chains has a pre-cutoff, and interpolates between the unbiased exclusion and the process with constant bias. As the bias increases, the mixing time undergoes two phase transitions: one when $β_n$ is of order $1/n$, and the other when $β_n$ is order $\log n/n$.
Consider a one-dimensional shift-invariant attractive spin-flip system in equilibrium, constituting a dynamic random environment, together with a nearest-neighbor random walk that on occupied sites has a local drift to the right but on vacant sites has a local drift to the left. In previous work we proved a law of large numbers for dynamic random environments satisfying a space-time mixing property called cone-mixing. If an attractive spin-flip system has a finite average coupling time at the origin for two copies starting from the all-occupied and the all-vacant configuration, respectively, t…
We consider the exclusion process on segments of the integers in a site-dependent random environment. We assume to be in the ballistic regime in which a single particle has positive linear speed. Our goal is to study the mixing time of the exclusion process when the number of particles is linear in the size of the segment. We investigate the order of the mixing time depending on the support of the environment distribution. In particular, we prove for nestling environments that the order of the mixing time is different than in the case of a single particle.
We introduce a natural extension of the exclusion process to hypergraphs and prove an upper bound for its mixing time. In particular we show the existence of a constant $C$ such that for any connected, regular hypergraph $G$ within some natural class, the $\varepsilon$-mixing time of the exclusion process on $G$ with any feasible number of particles can be upper-bounded by $CT_{\text{EX}(2,G)}\log(|V|/\varepsilon)$, where $|V|$ is the number of vertices in $G$ and $T_{\text{EX}(2,G)}$ is the 1/4-mixing time of the corresponding exclusion process with just two particles. Moreover we show this i…
We show that for any attractive Glauber-Exclusion process on the one-dimensional lattice of size $N$ with periodic boundary condition, if the corresponding hydrodynamic limit equation has a reaction term with a strictly convex potential, then the total-variation mixing time is of order $O(\log N)$. In particular, the result covers the full high-temperature regime in the original model introduced by De Masi, Ferrari and Lebowitz (1985).
We prove an upper bound for the $\varepsilon$-mixing time of the symmetric exclusion process on any graph G, with any feasible number of particles. Our estimate is proportional to $\mathsf{T}_{\mathsf{RW}(G)}\ln(|V|/\varepsilon)$, where |V| is the number of vertices in G, and $\mathsf{T}_{\mathsf{RW}(G)}$ is the 1/4-mixing time of the corresponding single-particle random walk. This bound implies new results for symmetric exclusion on expanders, percolation clusters, the giant component of the Erdos-Renyi random graph and Poisson point processes in $\mathbb{R}^d$. Our technical tools include a …
We find the total variation mixing time of the interchange process on the dumbbell graph (two complete graphs, $K_n$ and $K_m$, connected by a single edge), and show that this sequence of chains exhibits the cutoff phenomenon precisely when the smaller size $m$ goes to infinity. The mixing time undergoes a phase transition at $m\asymp \sqrt{n}$. We also state a conjecture on when exactly cutoff holds for the interchange process on general graphs. Our proofs use coupling methods, and they also give the mixing time of the simple exclusion process of $k$ labelled particles in the complete graph $…
We prove an invariance principle for a tagged particle in a simple exclusion process out of equilibrium. The scaling limit is a time-inhomogeneous process of independent increments, related to the solution of a fractional heat equation.
We consider the asymmetric simple exclusion process confined to the nonnegative integers with an open boundary at 0. The point 0 is connected to a reservoir where particles are injected and ejected at prescribed rates subject to the exclusion rule. We derive formulas for the transition probability as a function of time from states where initially there are m particles to states where there are n particles.
We give an exact expression for the distribution of the position X(t) of a single second class particle in the asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) where initially the second class particle is located at the origin and the first class particles occupy the sites {1,2,...}.
We give a partly new proof of the fluctuation bounds for the second class particle and current in the stationary asymmetric simple exclusion process. One novelty is a coupling that preserves the ordering of second class particles in two systems that are themselves ordered coordinatewise.
In earlier work the authors obtained integral formulas for probabilities for a single particle in the asymmetric simple exclusion process. Here formulas are obtained for joint probabilities for several particles. In the case of a single particle the derivation here is simpler than the one in the earlier work for one of its main results.
We give bounds on the rate of convergence to equilibrium of the symmetric simple exclusion process in $\Z^d$. Our results include the existent results in the literature. We get better bounds and larger class of initial states via a unified approach. The method includes a comparison of the evolution of n interacting particles with n independent ones along the whole time trajectory.
We consider simple exclusion processes on Z for which the underlying random walk has a finite first moment and a non-zero mean and whose initial distributions are product measures with different densities to the left and to the right of the origin. We prove a strong law of large numbers for the number of particles present at time t in an interval growing linearly with t.
We analyze a class of non-simple exclusion processes and the corresponding growth models by generalizing Gaertners Cole-Hopf transformation. We identify the main non-linearity and eliminate it by imposing a gradient type condition. For hopping range at most 3, using the generalized transformation, we prove the convergence of the exclusion process toward the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation. This is the first universality result concerning interacting particle systems in the context of KPZ universality class. While this class of exclusion processes are not explicitly solvable, we obtain the e…
We consider the symmetric simple exclusion process on Z^d, for d>= 5, and study the regularity of the quasi-stationary measures of the dynamics conditionned on not occupying the origin. For each ρ\in ]0,1[, we establish uniqueness of the density of quasi-stationary measures in L^2(d\nur), where \nur is the stationary measure of density ρ. This, in turn, permits us to obtain sharp estimates for P_{\nur}(τ>t), where τis the first time the origin is occupied.
Laws of large numbers, starting from certain nonequilibrium measures, have been shown for the integrated current across a bond, and a tagged particle in one-dimensional symmetric nearest-neighbor simple exclusion [Ann. Inst. Henri Poincare Probab. Stat. 42 (2006) 567-577]. In this article, we prove corresponding large deviation principles and evaluate the rate functions, showing different growth behaviors near and far from their zeroes which connect with results in [J. Stat. Phys. 136 (2009) 1-15].
This is an expanded version of a series of lectures delivered by the second author in June, 2009. It describes the results of three of the authors' papers on ASEP, from the derivation of exact formulas for configuration probabilities, through Fredholm determinant representation, to asymptotics for ASEP with step initial condition establishing KPZ universality. Although complete proofs are in general not given, at least the main elements of them are.
We investigate the hydrodynamic limit for weakly asymmetric simple exclusion processes in crystal lattices. We construct a suitable scaling limit by using a discrete harmonic map. As we shall observe, the quasi-linear parabolic equation in the limit is defined on a flat torus and depends on both the local structure of the crystal lattice and the discrete harmonic map. We formulate the local ergodic theorem on the crystal lattice by introducing the notion of local function bundle, which is a family of local functions on the configuration space. The ideas and methods are taken from the discrete …
In this paper we find explicit formulas for: (1) Green's function for a system of one-dimensional bosons interacting via a delta-function potential with particles confined to the positive half-line; and (2) the transition probability for the one-dimensional asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP) with particles confined to the nonnegative integers. These are both for systems with a finite number of particles. The formulas are analogous to ones obtained earlier for the Bose gas and ASEP on the line and integers, respectively. We use coordinate Bethe Ansatz appropriately modified to account f…
In earlier work (arXiv:1707.04927) the authors obtained formulas for the probability in the asymmetric simple exclusion process that at time $t$ a particle is at site $x$ and is the beginning of a block of $L$ consecutive particles. Here we consider asymptotics. Specifically, for the KPZ regime with step initial condition, we determine the conditional probability (asymptotically as $t\rightarrow\infty$) that a particle is the beginning of an $L$-block, given that it is at site $x$ at time $t$. Using duality between occupied and unoccupied sites we obtain the analogous result for a gap of $G$ u…
Let $J(t)$ be the the integrated flux of particles in the symmetric simple exclusion process starting with the product invariant measure $ν_ρ$ with density $ρ$. We compute its rescaled asymptotic variance: \[ \lim_{t\to\infty} t^{-1/2} \V J(t) = \sqrt{2/π} (1-ρ)ρ\] Furthermore we show that $t^{-1/4}J(t)$ converges weakly to a centered normal random variable with this variance. From these results we compute the asymptotic variance of a tagged particle in the nearest neighbor case and show the corresponding central limit theorem, results previously proven by Arratia.
We introduce a two-dimensional, distribution-valued field which we call the quadratic field associated to the one-dimensional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. We show that the stationary quadratic fluctuations of the simple exclusion process, when rescaled in the diffusive scaling, converge to this quadratic field. We show that this quadratic field evaluated at the diagonal corresponds to the Wick-renormalized square of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, and we use this new representation in order to prove some small and large-time properties of it.
We study the one-dimensional asymmetric simple exclusion process on the lattice $\{1, \dots,N\}$ with creation/annihilation at the boundaries. The boundary rates are time dependent and change on a slow time scale $N^{-a}$ with $a>0$. We prove that at the time scale $N^{1+a}$ the system evolves quasi-statically with a macroscopic density profile given by the entropy solution of the stationary Burgers equation with boundary densities changing in time, determined by the corresponding microscopic boundary rates. We consider two different types of boundary rates: the "Liggett boundaries" that corre…
We find the formulas of the transition probabilities of the $N$-particle multi-species asymmetric simple exclusion processes (ASEP), and show that the transition probabilities are written as a determinant when the order of particles in the final state is the same as the order of particles in the initial state.
We obtain the hydrodynamic limit of a simple exclusion process in an inhomogeneous environment of divergence form. Our main assumption is a suitable version of Gamma-convergence for the environment. In this way we obtain an unified approach to recent works on the field.
For the two-sided Bernoulli initial condition with density $ρ_-$ (resp. $ρ_+$) to the left (resp. to the right), we study the distribution of a tagged particle in the one dimensional symmetric simple exclusion process. We obtain a formula for the moment generating function of the associated current in terms of a Fredholm determinant. Our arguments are based on a combination of techniques from integrable probability which have been developed recently for studying the asymmetric exclusion process and a subsequent intricate symmetric limit. An expression for the large deviation function of the ta…
We consider the reversible exclusion process with reservoirs on arbitrary networks. We characterize the spectral gap, mixing time, and mixing window of the process, in terms of certain simple statistics of the underlying network. Among other consequences, we establish a non-conservative analogue of Aldous's spectral gap conjecture, and we show that cutoff occurs if and only if the product condition is satisfied. We illustrate this by providing explicit cutoffs on discrete lattices of arbitrary dimensions and boundary conditions, which substantially generalize recent one-dimensional results. We…
We consider continuous-time random walks on a random locally finite subset of $\mathbb{R}^d$ with random symmetric jump probability rates. The jump range can be unbounded. We assume some second--moment conditions and that the above randomness is left invariant by the action of the group $\mathbb{G}=\mathbb{R}^d$ or $\mathbb{G}=\mathbb{Z}^d$. We then add a site-exclusion interaction, thus making the particle system a simple exclusion process. We show that, for almost all environments, under diffusive space-time rescaling the system exhibits a hydrodynamic limit in path space. The hydrodynamic e…
We consider the biased card shuffling and the Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process (ASEP) on the segment. We obtain the asymptotic of their mixing times: our result show that these two continuous-time Markov chains display cutoff. Our analysis combines several ingredients including: a study of the hydrodynamic profile for ASEP, the use of monotonic eigenfunctions, stochastic comparisons and concentration inequalities.
We show that the joint probability generating function of the stationary measure of a finite state asymmetric exclusion process with open boundaries can be expressed in terms of joint moments of Markov processes called quadratic harnesses. We use our representation to prove the large deviations principle for the total number of particles in the system. We use the generator of the Markov process to show how explicit formulas for the average occupancy of a site arise for special choices of parameters. We also give similar representations for limits of stationary measures as the number of sites t…
Oliveira conjectured that the order of the mixing time of the exclusion process with $k$-particles on an arbitrary $n$-vertex graph is at most that of the mixing-time of $k$ independent particles. We verify this up to a constant factor for $d$-regular graphs when each edge rings at rate $1/d$ in various cases: (1) when $d = Ω( \log_{n/k} n)$, (2) when $\mathrm{gap}:=$ the spectral-gap of a single walk is $ O ( 1/\log^4 n) $ and $k \ge n^{Ω(1)}$, (3) when $k \asymp n^{a}$ for some constant $0<a<1$. In these cases our analysis yields a probabilistic proof of a weaker version of Aldous' famous sp…
We prove Gaussian tail estimates for the transition probability of $n$ particles evolving as symmetric exclusion processes on $\bb Z^d$, improving results obtained in \cite{l}. We derive from this result a non-equilibrium Boltzmann-Gibbs principle for the symmetric simple exclusion process in dimension 1 starting from a product measure with slowly varying parameter.
We prove nonequilibrium fluctuations for the boundary driven symmetric simple exclusion process. We deduce from this result the stationary fluctuations.
Motivated by kinetically constrained interacting particle systems (KCM), we consider a reversible coalescing and branching simple exclusion process on a general finite graph $G=(V,E)$ dual to the biased voter model on $G$. Our main goal are tight bounds on its logarithmic Sobolev constant and relaxation time, with particular focus on the delicate slightly supercritical regime in which the equilibrium density of particles tends to zero as $|V|\rightarrow \infty$. Our results allow us to recover very directly and improve to $\ell^p$-mixing, $p\ge 2$, and to more general graphs, the mixing time r…
We show that the infinitesimal generator of the symmetric simple exclusion process, recast as a quantum spin-1/2 ferromagnetic Heisenberg model, can be solved by elementary techniques on the complete, complete bipartite, and related multipartite graphs. Some of the resulting infinitesimal generators are formally identical to homogeneous as well as mixed higher spins models. The degeneracies of the eigenspectra are described in detail, and the Clebsch-Gordan machinery needed to deal with arbitrary spin-s representations of the SU(2) is briefly developed. We mention in passing how our results fi…
We prove a nonequilibirum central limit theorem for the position of a tagged particle in the one-dimensional nearest-neighbor symmetric simple exclusion process under diffusive scaling starting from a Bernoulli product measure associated to a smooth profile $ρ_0:\bb R\to [0,1]$.
We prove the symmetry of the Diffusion Coefficient appearing in the fluctuation-dissipation theorem for the general asymmetric simple exclusion process.
We show that for the mean zero simple exclusion process in $\mathbb {Z}^d$ and for the asymmetric simple exclusion process in $\mathbb{Z}^d$ for $d\geq3$, the self-diffusion coefficient of a tagged particle is stable when approximated by simple exclusion processes on large periodic lattices. The proof depends on a similar stability property of the Sobolev inner product associated with the operator.
Non-trivial linear bounds are obtained for the displacement of a random walk in a dynamic random environment given by a one-dimensional simple symmetric exclusion process in equilibrium. The proof uses an adaptation of multiscale renormalization methods of Kesten and Sidoravicius.
We give a new approach to the well-known convergence to the hydrodynamic limit for the symmetric simple exclusion process (SSEP). More precisely, we characterize any possible limit of its empirical density measures as solutions to the heat equation by passing to the limit in the gradient flow structure of the particle system.
We prove an energy estimate for the polar empirical measure of the two-dimensional symmetric simple exclusion process. We deduce from this estimate and from results in reference [2] large deviations principles for the polar empirical measure and for the occupation time of the origin.
We consider a one-dimensional continuous time random walk with transition rates depending on an underlying autonomous simple symmetric exclusion process starting out of equilibrium. This model represents an example of a random walk in a slowly non-uniform mixing dynamic random environment. Under a proper space-time rescaling in which the exclusion is speeded up compared to the random walk, we prove a hydrodynamic limit theorem for the exclusion as seen by this walk and we derive an ODE describing the macroscopic evolution of the walk. The main difficulty is the proof of a replacement lemma for…
A well-known result with respect to the one dimensional nearest-neighbor symmetric simple exclusion process is the convergence to fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter 1/4, in the sense of finite-dimensional distributions, of the subdiffusively rescaled current across the origin, and the subdiffusively rescaled tagged particle position. The purpose of this note is to improve this convergence to a functional central limit theorem, with respect to the uniform topology, and so complete the solution to a conjecture in the literature with respect to simple exclusion processes.
